


Those Times We Never Met

by Innwich



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Autopsy, Car Accidents, Dog Walking, Domestic Violence, M/M, Neighbors, Painting, Past Lives, Reincarnation, Soldier Castiel, Temporary Character Death, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 15:02:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2697290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innwich/pseuds/Innwich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Castiel had lived many lifetimes. They’d had some hits, and they’d had some misses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Those Times We Never Met

** 1 **

A small crowd of late commuters had gathered down the road. A few emergency services vehicles were parked on the side of the street.

“What do you suppose has happened?” Castiel said.

Jimmy panted, but didn’t answer. He was too busy sniffing at the old postbox in front of the grocery store. Castiel let his gaze wandered across the magazines stacked in front of the store, before Jimmy finished inspecting the mailbox and was happy to move on.

It was a nice clear night with a full moon in the sky. It was a good day for a walk in the neighborhood. Jimmy had been particularly excited when he’d spotted a squirrel on the corner of the street, and had barked at it until it scrambled up a tree.

When they walked past the crowd, Jimmy started to pull at his leash, trying to go near the people. Castiel tightened his grip on the leash. The nylon scraped a red line across his palm.

“Jimmy. No,” Castiel said.

Before Castiel knew it, Jimmy had pulled the leash out of his hand. Jimmy ducked down, and, with a wag of his tail, crawled through the gaps between people’s legs.

“Jimmy.” Castiel squeezed through the crowd.

He pushed his way to the front of the crowd to find Jimmy sitting right under a police tape with his leash trailing on the ground.

A black muscle car was wrapped around a street lamp. The hood was crumpled and some smoke was coming out from under it. Pieces of shattered glass littered the ground.

A few firefighters were pulling a man out from the wreckage. The man’s face was covered in cuts and contusions. His arms were bent at unnatural angles. Blood dripped from his fingers and onto the sleeves of the rescuers. The only thing of the man that remained intact was a small pendant hanging in front of his chest.

An EMT approached the group, but one of the firefighters shook his head at her.

A large body stood squarely in front of Castiel.

“Please stay behind the line,” a police officer said.

“I’m sorry,” Castiel said, tearing his gaze from the scene. “Come, Jimmy. Come.”

With his tongue lolling out of his mouth, Jimmy looked far too pleased of himself.

Castiel grabbed the leash, and marched Jimmy back to their route.

\- - -

** 2 **

“Sam? Where are you?” Dean called.

There weren’t a lot of people in the main room of the gallery, and it was usually pretty easy to pick Sam out from a crowd because he was so stupidly tall. Sam had run off with Sarah.

A couple of guys were talking next to a painting of a huge tree, chatting about the use of colors or shit like that. A few other people were listening to them like they were sprouting the new Word of God.

That was why Dean didn’t do art galleries. They were boring and stuffy and only admitted people with an invitation and a monkey suit. He couldn’t believe Sam ditched him at an art gallery. He was only here because Sam had promised him pie after the show, and now Sam had disappeared on him.

Dean found a nice quiet stretch of wall in the middle of the room. There was only one painting on the wall, and, because he had to wait for Sam to friggin’ find him, he turned to look at it.

The painting was a portrait of a man. The man was scruffy, and had smudges of dirt on his cheeks and forehead. It set a stark contrast against the whites of his eyes. He was staring into the distance, wearing a deep furrow between his brows.

The brush strokes were preserved in the tracks of thickly caked paint. It was easy to imagine the artist sitting in front of an easel and dragging a brush through those dark messy strands falling into the man’s eyes.

It was like the man was no more than a few feet away from him, sitting right behind the wooden frame.

Dean reached out with a hand.

“Please don’t touch the paintings.”

Dean pulled his hand back like it was burnt. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” the woman said. “I’ve spent a lot of time working on them, so I tend to be a little overprotective.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. He didn’t think the artist would be here. “You’re Anna Milton?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Anna said. “And you are?”

“I’m Dean. Dean Winchester,” Dean said. “Can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“Who is this guy?” Dean said, nodding at the painting. “I can’t help noticing you’ve put him in the center of the room.”

“He was my brother,” Anna said, staring up at the painting. “He died in the war.”

Dean could see the resemblance between the siblings. They both had that faraway look in their eyes. “Sorry to hear that.”

Anna smiled wistfully. “He was a good man.”

\- - -

** 3 **

By the time Castiel hurried to the room, the body had already been laid out on the autopsy table. The skin was cold and gray, but it showed no signs of advanced decomposition.

“Domestic abuse victim,” Gabriel said helpfully.

Castiel checked the toe tag. “Winchester, Dean.”

“Yup,” Gabriel said. “Good-looking one we’ve got here.”

Castiel hummed in response.

Dean was a man in his prime. He’d been a beautiful man before he ended up on the table. There was a swelling on Dean’s bottom lip, a half-healed bruise on his forehead, and yellowing bruises on his temples. But the worst of the injuries were on the chest and limbs. Dean’s chest was mottled with blacks and blues.

“Probably easy to hide them,” Gabriel said.

“I don’t understand how someone could do this to another person.”

“You and me both, Castiel.”

Castiel made an incision, and pulled the chest open.

“A punctured and collapsed lung,” Castiel said.

“Looks like it went untreated for too long,” Gabriel said.

“The entire situation went untreated for too long,” Castiel said. “There are so many old bruises.”

“True,” Gabriel said.

Castiel pulled out the organs and laid them out on a metal tray. Castiel weighed and dissected the organs. Gabriel packed away the samples and some of the organs they might need later, and stored them in the fridge.

While Castiel was writing his notes, Gabriel gathered a handful of organs that could be put back into the body, and stood next to the table, ready to dump them back into the chest cavity.

“I’ll do it,” Castiel said.

Gabriel paused and put down the entrails again. “What? It’s not like anyone can see it.”

“I’d like to do it,” Castiel said.

“You have to stop caring so much about these dead guys.” Gabriel sighed, and his stomach grumbled.

“I’ll finish up,” Castiel said. “Why don’t you get an early lunch?”

“You’re the best, kiddo,” Gabriel said, and left with a spring in his step.

Castiel continued writing his report in peace. Sometimes, with Gabriel assisting him with the autopsies, it was easy to forget how quiet his workplace could be. Dead people were good at staying silent.

“Psst. Castiel?”

“Yes?”

“The brother has been sitting out there for the whole day,” Gabriel said.

“That’s strange.”

“Yeah. Who would want to hang around this place?” Gabriel said, before he left for good this time.

After Castiel finished with his report, he reassembled Dean’s body, and returned the organs to their rightful places. Gabriel had called him a perfectionist on multiple occasions, but Castiel liked to know that everything was where it should be. Castiel stitched up Dean with a careful hand, something that the man had not known in his life.

Castiel hosed down Dean, and then the table, before returning Dean to the morgue.

It was late by the time Castiel went out for lunch, but when he walked out of the morgue, he spotted a tall man was sitting in the hallway. The man was hunched in a plastic chair, and his hair was tangled and greasy.

It was no doubt the brother that Gabriel had mentioned.

Castiel walked up to the man, and said, “I’m sorry.”

The man had dark bags under his eyes. He nodded, but didn’t say anything.

Castiel patted the man on the shoulder, and went on his way.

\- - -

** 0 **

Dean switched on the lights in his apartment, and sat down heavily in the couch, sorting through his mail. There weren’t any bills yet, but they would come soon. He put aside the ad for a new pizza joint and dumped the rest of the junk mail.

He frowned at a pink rectangular envelope at the bottom of the pile. It was Thanksgiving and all, but he didn’t know why Sam would send him a pink letter.

The letter was addressed to the apartment next door, to one Castiel Novak.

“Weird ass name,” Dean said. The letter was actually kind of heavy in his hands. The address on the envelope looked like it was written by a kid.

Dean was too lazy to walk back down to the lobby where the mailboxes were, especially since the elevator wasn’t working, but his neighbor was right next door to him.

Dean sighed, and picked up his keys again.

It was Thanksgiving. Maybe the guy had been looking forward to getting the letter the whole week. Might as well do a good deed for someone.

Dean rang the doorbell of the apartment next door.

No one answered the door.

“Damn,” Dean said.

He tried to slip the letter into the crack under the door. The guy must have a thick doormat or something, because the letter wouldn’t go all the way under the door. Dean tried to pull it out again. It refused to move; it was wedged under the doormat. Dean grunted. “You’ve gotta be friggin’ kidding me.”

The door opened.

Dean looked up and got an eyeful of someone’s crotch.

He looked up higher, and the guy was staring down at him.

Which was awkward.

“Sorry,” they said at the same time.

Dean tugged the letter free, and straightened up before the guy kicked him out for snooping around his door.

“Can I help you?” the man said.

“Are you Cas?” Dean said.

“Yes, I am,” Cas said.

“I’m from next door. Got your letter in my mail,” Dean said, handing the letter out to Cas.

Cas took it, read the flowery writing that spelled out his name, and smiled. “Thank you for returning it to me.”

“No sweat,” Dean said. “I mean, we’re neighbors. We look out for each other, right?”

“Right.” Cas nodded.

A mop of fur was peering up at Dean from behind Cas. He’d seen that furball in the streets in the neighborhood before. He’d noticed because the owner was a regular rule-breaker. Not many soldiers had the nerves to walk their dogs in full uniform. John would have thrown a fit if he’d seen it, and Dean was nothing if not a military brat.

“You are the army guy with the dog,” Dean said.

Cas smiled. “You’re the man with the car and the brother.”

It startled a laugh out of Dean. He hadn’t expected anyone in the building to have actually noticed him. “Yeah, that’s me. Can't miss Baby and Sammy.”

“You’re hard to miss too,” Cas said sincerely.

“Uh, thanks.” Dean rubbed the back of his head, trying hard not to blush like a schoolgirl. He was here to deliver a letter, not to flirt with his clueless neighbor. He jabbed a hand back to his apartment. “I should go.”

“I’ve made you uncomfortable,” Cas said, his brows drawing together. “That wasn’t my intention.”

“It’s cool. Don’t worry about it,” Dean said.

“Would you like to join me for dinner?” Cas blurted out.

Dean blinked. “Uh, aren’t you having someone over? It’s Thanksgiving.”

“My brother missed his flight,” Cas said. “And I prepared too much food. Would you like to join me?”

Dean could smell a stuffed turkey cooking in the oven in Cas’s place. Damn. His mouth was watering. It didn’t help that the only thing waiting for him at home was a microwave meal sitting in the fridge. “Are you sure?”

“I’d be honored if you celebrated Thanksgiving with me,” Cas said.

“Hey, pleasure is all mine.” Dean grinned. He held out his hand. “We’ve lived here for a while, but never really introduced ourselves. I’m Dean.”

“Castiel.” Cas took his hand in a strong warm grip. “It’s good to finally meet you, Dean.”


End file.
